“The only thing more important than your to-do list is your to-be list. The only thing more important than your to-be list is to be.” ― Alan Cohen
“Sometimes our stop-doing list needs to be bigger than our to-do list.” ― Patti Digh
Today as I write, it’s the Fourth of July Holiday, which for my part-time work schedule means it’s the beginning of a four-day weekend ― and an opportunity to power-load my weekly to-do list to capacity. I’m not an electrical engineer, yet it sounds like I run the risk of blowing a circuit, and some days it feels that way.
I’m a little bit OCD about making to-do lists.
The New England OCD Institute defines it this way:
“Excessive list-making: People with OCD often fear they will forget something important, so they may make excessive lists to remind them to do daily routine activities (i.e. brush teeth, make breakfast, etc.) However, research has shown that people with OCD do not have memory problems, so the lists are actually unnecessary. List-making would be considered a compulsion because the list reassures the person with OCD and helps them to feel temporarily better, thus they never learn that they do not need the list to remember things.”
To-Do List-Making
Over the years I’ve kept my weekly to-do lists, a record of what I’ve done, or at least an archive of my intentions. I’ve realized that I’ve kept over 10 years-worth of to-do lists, which is more than a ream of paper to file. I started this habit ― or compulsion ― after I left my committed relationship of 15 years and I was curious how I would spend my time as a single person and realized too, that there was no one to remind me of my commitments. As I reviewed my lists, some patterns revealed that my life is a mix of the mundane, the social, and creative.
10+ Years or a Ream of To-Do Lists
To-Do List Reoccurring Themes
- Laundry, once a week
- Draft a to-do list for next week
- Cook something on the weekend I can eat for a few days
- Schedule time and activities with one or two friends each week
- Schedule a movie matinee for myself or with a friend
- Schedule time for writing
- Weekly phone date with parents, then later with just my father
- Guilty pleasure TV-viewing
- Housecleaning chores (number one subject of procrastination)
- Appointment and meeting reminders: medical, haircut, and creative
- Pay bills when needed, on time
- Draft a grocery list every two weeks
- Grocery-shopping, every two weeks
- Family and friend birthday reminders, holiday and get-togethers
- Work reminders and deadlines
2019 to-do list on the left, 2009 to-do list on the right.
Now, to make it a little more complicated and fail safe, I maintain a datebook with any appointments, meetings, gatherings, or plans which involve other people so I don’t double-book or forget. As I’ve aged and I fear that I might forget something on my paper to-do list which resides at its home on my desk, I make daily Post-It Note to-do lists that travel with me in my purse. Yes, I still carry purse or a messenger bag.
Yes, I confess, I’m a little bit OCD!
How I’ve Kept To-Do Lists
I’ve been keeping to-do lists for as long as I can remember. My adolescent diaries (the small hardbound kind with a tiny lock and key) were in fact a record of what I did, what I was thinking and feeling, and what I planned on doing (usually if I could find the courage).
Dear Diary
40 years ago, when I attended a National Conference for the National Organization for Women (NOW), a speaker jokingly asked how many attendees kept to-do lists and had one in their purse, pocket, or notebook, and asked us to raise them up. An overwhelming majority of us did. The point, women who were mothers, wives, singletons, workers, and activists needed to organize our lives to get everything done that was important. As feminist-activists the personal is political, and what we added to our to-do list created action.
At work, I used a filing system for organizing my to-do’s that I borrowed from my Catholic upbringing. It was the Heaven, Limbo, and Hell system. It’s pretty intuitive, the Heaven basket was my top priority, Hell, meant I usually didn’t give a damn on when it would get done, and Limbo was home to tasks that required some kind of resolution before I could proceed, which often was the most populated.
In my personal life, my journal-keeping evolved from the foundation created by my adolescent diaries and functioned secondarily as a to-do list embedded within the recounting of my life. Soon, I began using a small notepad where I’d jot down things as they came up, adding small check boxes that I could fill-in when the task was completed. When Stephen Covey’s book and seminars on the 7 Habits of Highly-Effective People became a thing, I organized my datebook for work and my personal life.
A Sampling of Journals
For the past 10-plus years, I’ve kept a weekly to do-list displayed on my desk in my home writing alcove. Yes, it includes small check boxes which I strive to complete each week. Sometimes things get cancelled or rescheduled which allows me to check off the box even if it reappears at a later date. Yes, to reference a book from the 1970s, The Games People Play.
To-Do List on my writing desk at home
What I’ve Learned from Keeping To-Do Lists
As an eldest child from a dysfunctional family (Full disclosure: I think all families and relationships are both functional and dysfunctional, because as individuals, so are we), a codependent in most personal and professional relationships, and as a person in recovery, I’ve spent most of my life as a human doing rather than a human being. My to-do lists to some degree are a reflection of that challenge.
As I’ve aged and made progress in my journey as a spiritual being in recovery, I’ve learned that who I am gives me value, not simply what I do. I’ve gradually embraced the belief that my self-esteem is not just measured by what I do for others, instead it is what I do to love and care for myself to live authentically.
The items that make my to-do list today, as I mentioned in my introduction to this essay, include a mix of the mundane, the social, and creative. I might add the aspirational. As I review my to-do lists, I discover that in addition to a human doing, and human being, I am a human becoming.
My weekly to-do lists and journal entries include scheduling more time for myself for meditation, reflection, and solitude, more creative objectives inspired by ideas piqued by my curiosity that I want to pursue, and lastly an effort to elevate the mundane rituals and tasks that are the foundation of daily life and create the rhythm of our days.
My to-do lists get longer as I become more aware that my life gets shorter. There is so much to do, so much to be, and so much to become. Life is good. I’m grateful. Thanks, H.P.!
I’m a little bit OCD!
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Procrastination Station: Dysfunction Junction
Creatures of Habit: Harbingers of Spring
Related To-Do List Reading
Confessions of an Obsessive List Maker
How To Stop To-Do Lists Ruining Your Life
27 Signs You’re an Obsessive List Maker
What You Need to Change a Bad Habit
Thanks. In a way, I envy you; I keep wondering why I can’t get anything done, and it’s usually because I don’t have a “plan.”